The Long View

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You spend ninety per cent of your time with children, invalids, fools, and animals. What a mind will yours become.” The Long View by Elizabeth Jane Howard is a brilliantly written but ultimately depressing story of a marriage. When we meet the Flemings they are ”celebrating” the engagement of their son who is entering a marriage that looks like it will replicate the disaster that is his parents’. After reading this story of Conrad, an interesting but selfish, difficult, and unlikable man, and his wife, Antonia, who searches for his approval over what feels like a lifetime, anyone might pause before getting married. Perhaps it is just that by the second half of the book I could hardly bear to be around Conrad and the damage he wreaks but I found the story weaker and less compelling than the first half. However, Howard is a very strong writer and even at her weakest greatly interesting. I’m just glad to be away from this suffocating world in which relationships are something to be avoided (not that living alone looks good either). Antonia Fleming surely deserves better than what she got. They [mother and daughter] seemed two women bound together, having in common nothing in particular, and everything in general; who, were they not related, would not willingly have spent five minutes in each other’s company; but who, because of their relationship, had spent nineteen years, irritating, modifying, interfering with, decryring, and depending upon each other. There are only two kinds of people—those who live different lives with the same partners, and those who live the same life with different partners.

Her second marriage, to Australian broadcaster Jim Douglas-Henry in 1958, was brief. [3] Her third marriage, to novelist Kingsley Amis, whom she met while organising the Cheltenham Literary Festival, [7] lasted from 1965 to 1983. For part of that time, 1968–1976, they lived at Lemmons, a Georgian house in Barnet, where Howard wrote Something in Disguise (1969). [11] Her stepson, Martin Amis, credited her with encouraging him to become a more serious reader and writer. [12] In later life, Howard lived in Bungay, Suffolk. She was appointed CBE in 2000. She died at home on 2 January 2014, aged 90. [1] Works [ edit ] a b c Beauman, Nicola (3 January 2014). "Elizabeth Jane Howard: Writer". The Independent . Retrieved 17 February 2018. This tale is like a gossip columnist of the day sneering at all the pillars of society. Phrases like 'ghastly sterility' abound.he always maintained that living consisted of no fundamentals, outlines, basic truths or principles ... but simply a vast quantity of details, endlessly variable, and utterly unrelated)." In 1950s London, Antonia Fleming faces the prospect of a life lived alone. Her children are now adults; her husband Conrad, a domineering and emotionally complex man, is now a stranger. There were only two kinds of people, those who live different lives with the same partner, and those who live the same life with different partners … ” She was always expecting something wonderful to happen to her—up to the very day that she died, she believed that. I’m going to attach my quotes at the end of this note, They are described by Hilary Mantel as “jaundiced observations – pithily expressed, painfully accurate.” I read the book because Mantel selected Howard as her favourite novelist, and I’ve attached below a long quote from her article and a link to it. I’d never read any Howard before, although I knew her as Kingsley Amis’s wife and Martin Amis’s stepmother. This is shameful but a reflection of how the world regards “women writers.” She is a better writer than either and certainly a better observer of human relationships.

Originally published in 1956, The Long View is Elizabeth Jane Howard's uncannily authentic portrait of one marriage and one woman. Written with exhilarating wit, it is a gut-wrenching account of the birth and death of a relationship. Non ci sono paragoni tra i due, ma voglio dire che l'ho letto con una tale partecipazione che non so dire se sia un bel libro davvero. The most mysterious, intricate point about women is that they require somebody else to teach them to live in their own body. Without that, they are lost, because they never discovered.Self-centered men, everyone at their worst. There are amazing human interactions, but at times I got lost in the writing. I wanted more fire in Antonia, and had a hard time relating to her. If I didn't feel down about love before.... Partecipazione, non immedesimazione. È sicuramente un romanzo imperfetto, ma mi ha coinvolto sia con la storia sia con la scrittura, davvero elegante, sottile, puntuale. Forty-three-year-old Antonia Fleming is preparing a dinner party for eight at the house in Campden Hill Square she shares with her husband, Conrad. The occasion is the engagement of their son, Julian. Their other child, Deirdre, hates her father and resents her mother—a reality Conrad ponders, along with the disastrous state of Deirdre’s single life, as he leaves the bed of his current mistress.

Ora tutto quell'edificio franava come una massa d'argilla giù da una montagna, e la sua alta opinione mutò in una spaventosa, improvvisa indifferenza. Ci fu il silenzio completo e sinistro che sempre segue una valanga di quelle proporzioni." She passionately wanted to be regarded ‘for herself’ as women say, which means for some elusive attraction which they do not feel they possess. The point about two people is that they should change at approximately the same speed in approximately the same direction.I debated whether to give this 3 or 4 stars ⭐️ because as ever EJH’s writing is wonderful , but I decided on 3 because I just found it so depressing ! First published in 1956 it’s a story of a break down of a marriage on reverse , it wasn’t This I found depressing even though Conrad Fleming was a complete chauvinistic pig! It was the way older man so readily and easily prayed on young women and how young women weren’t taken seriously by either sexes of the older generation. Now after reading her memoir slipstream I think 🤔 mr & Mrs Fleming were based on her own parents, apart from Mrs Fleming being less Frigid as her real mother as the fling with Thompson in mariselle , France was some of the best writing. Ejh was abused by her own father and some of Conrad’s personality traits are copied from him (in my opinion) apart from ejhs own father loved women and was a serial charmer . Where as Conrad Fleming treats all women and Narrato come un percorso a ritroso, “Il lungo sguardo della scrittriceElizabeth Jane Howard mostra, attraverso la narrazione della famiglia della Antonia, le costrizioni di un matrimionio subito, una condizione matrimoniale scelta come fuga da una terribile famiglia di origine ma diventata un’altra prigione con un marito silenzioso, disinnamorato ma fedele alle convinzioni sociali, padre pessimo incapace di affetto nei confronti dei figli, perennemente critico nei confronti della moglie cinico e silenzioso con le amanti . She wrote a book of short stories, Mr. Wrong (1975), and edited two anthologies, including The Lover's Companion (1978). [1] Autobiography and biographies [ edit ] a b Brown, Andrew (9 November 2002). "Profile: Elizabeth Jane Howard". The Guardian . Retrieved 17 February 2018.